A SALON owner said she has been left 'disgusted' after thieves stole £2,600 of equipment and money from her business.

Emma Jones, 36, has run the Emma Jones Hair Studio in Union Road, Oswaldtwistle, for the last 13 years.

She said the thieves prized open the lock at 7.20am and tried to rip out the CCTV system before stealing hair products, used in the salon and for sale, a number of GHD straighteners, scissors, hairdryers used by the salon and those for sale and even the staff’s tips box and the money they had saved for their Christmas party.

Mrs Jones has called the police and passed over the CCTV images she was able to gather to the police but has also put out an appeal on social media as well as doing some of her own detective work.

But the mother-of-one said she has been left sickened by the thought of thieves running amok in her business.

She said: “I’m disgusted at the thought of someone breaking in and rummaging around in my business.

“It makes me sick and I’m very angry. It happened on Sunday morning and we didn’t know until Tuesday as we’re not open on Monday.

“It looks like they’ve just picked up anything they can sell on. It’s disgusting and it happened in the day.

“But I think I know who it is and I’ve been passing names onto the police. I hope they’re caught and get what they deserve.”

As a result of the break in, Mrs Jones said she is upping her security measures, including new cameras in her salon.

Mrs Jones said: “I’ve been here for 13 years and never had anything like this happen and it’s made me start to question things.

“Even new customers who come in I’ve started to wonder who they are and if they’ve actually come in to have their hair done.

“It’s going to cost me a small fortune to replace all my equipment but we’re battling on and looking after our customers with the equipment we have left.

“They even took the Christmas tips that have been generously donated and the money we’d got together for our Christmas party, which we’re going to have to replace.

“It seems they have tried the Mystique salon further up the road as well.

“But they won’t beat us. We’re carrying on as normal, these people won’t keep us down.”

A police spokesman said an investigation was underway and appealed for anyone with information to call police on 101.